THE decision by the US Coast Guard to begin turning off the Loran-C navigation signal from February 8 is as unexpected as it is illogical. And it coincidently sends all the wrong kind of signals about navigation strategy.
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IMO ‘will lead emissions plan’ says the
headline and it’s good without necessarily being right.
A newspaper sub-editor is more often than not a writer’s conscience and in this case, Alfons (not Alfred) Guinier of the European Community Shipowners Association is merely expressing his optimistic hope that IMO retains control of the post-Copenhagen GHG process.
We had all better hope he is correct. This is not because of the hysteria that surrounded the conference but because of the accord that resulted. While too many people were focussing on what the accord wasn’t – or why it shouldn’t have been at all – not enough were looking at what it is and what it might mean.
Even for such a skimpy document, looked…
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THE shipping industry, as we know, likes a challenge. From the first owner who reckoned he could make another buck carrying more of something more quickly than had been possible before, to the one who thought that carrying ore in one direction and oil in the other was a sure-fire winner, it’s an industry of entrepreneurs.
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Don’t die of ignorance was the strapline of an unpopular and largely ineffective health awareness campaign of the 1980s. That the same exhortation can still be still applied to the public’s perception of shipping’s contribution to pollution and global warming is enough to make you weep.
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THE ratification of the Lisbon Treaty has given the European Union the clearest and strongest signal of its own importance in the world in its history. It has coincidently acted as a
spur to its ambitions vis-a-vis the maritime industry.
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